On the one hand, Tyrie had just made Cosby's point about the damage done by absentee fathers. And on the other hand, casting blame on parents for the wayward behavior of their children can be too simple.
And Roena Hawk, a widowed mother of four from Clinton, has had enough of that.
"Nowadays, raising kids is a full-time job," she said in an interview at the forum. "Trying to be there all the time is very hard. You can't say that just because the mothers are not spending time with their children [they are to blame]. I know I spent time with my children and they still went astray at times."
As for Cosby, she said: "Now we see him making those statements and he had skeletons in his closet. . . . What kind of example is he showing?"
After the controversy generated by his Constitution Hall remarks, Cosby began refining his stump speech, if you will. Though he and his spokesmen continue to say he was initially taken out of context by the media, others who were there that night, including Ted Shaw and Joe Madison, say he was not.
Several months later, during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual legislative weekend, Madison was one of those included in a private breakfast meeting with Cosby that was arranged by the Rev. Al Sharpton. According to Madison, Cosby told the group: "I just can't sit quietly by with teenage girls getting pregnant and nobody doing anything." Some black lawmakers pointed out that there are programs to address the problem that can't get funding. Why not help them on that front? Sharpton said it couldn't just be a one-dimensional debate, where those suffering must carry the weight alone.
When Cosby later spoke at a CBC public forum, some noticed he had retooled his message. Hearing his critics sometimes had the effect of stiffening his spine, but it also may have enlightened him. Day and night, he became available for wide-ranging conversations, sometimes keeping interested parties -- columnists, activists, educators -- on their phones for hours. In a Washington radio call-in show last fall with D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey, Cosby acknowledged he had been too sweeping with some of his observations and not careful enough with others.
Referring to his Constitution Hall judgments, Cosby said: "The mistake that was made by me was to say, 'I'm afraid the lower-economic people are not holding up their end.' "
Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is one of those who helped Cosby improve his presentation. "He was misreading how the statistics should be presented," says Poussaint, a close Cosby friend who served as a consultant on "The Cosby Show." Cosby often speaks anecdotally, tells stories and improvises to connect emotionally with his audience, Poussaint says.
"He meant to wake people up and say, 'We've got to do something for the sake of our children. It's much more awful than you suspect.' "
As Poussaint sees it, "I don't know who we can compare him to. Who could have gone out there and gotten that attention?"
And then there is this, the comedian's friend suggests: Another motivation for Cosby's crusade may have been the tragic death of his only son, Ennis, in January 1997. Ennis, 27, was shot by a Ukrainian immigrant as he was changing a flat tire in Los Angeles.
"The event was devastating, just devastating, as you might imagine," Poussaint says. "And I still think it is." Ennis's goal was to be a teacher, as Cosby's had been at one time. Cosby was especially proud, Poussaint added, that his son wanted to teach in underprivileged areas.
It is Poussaint's view that Cosby's crusade was not destined to last, that there were too many demands for town-halls and inevitably he would have burned out.
"I mean, this was going to become his career? I don't think so," Poussaint said. "I think he felt a responsibility to continue something he started. He wanted to let people know he cared and would meet with them. So he was being a leader in a way he hadn't before."
'Hey, Hey, Hey!'
Nearly eight months after his Constitution Hall remarks, Cosby flew to Detroit by private jet at 3 p.m., and the city was waiting.
When he got to the Wayne County Community College building, the library became a kind of private conference room for him. He took meetings. One of them was with Atonn F. Muhammad, president and CEO of the Washington-based Real Hip-Hop Network.
"We are the anti-booty-shaking, anti-bling-bling network," says Muhammad.
A lot of what made hip-hop relevant has been ignored, maintains Muhammad, whose interest is in producing "20/20"-style interview shows and taking on such topics as how the music industry tries to profit from death. The network is scheduled to launch in March. Muhammad had sent a packet to Cosby's PR agency, and Cosby was impressed, and that is how Muhammad ended up in Detroit.
"We thought it was just a meet-and-greet and that we were going to be watching him in the audience," Muhammad recalls. But Cosby had other plans. He told Rochelle Riley, the Detroit Free Press columnist who was moderating the event: "Put him to speak just before me."
